Possible LIRR Strike Prompts MTA to Consider Bus Service

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority took a step towards providing bus service for Long Island Rail Road commuters should the train line’s unions go on strike this summer.

The agency’s board voted 8-4 Wednesday in favor of starting the process to request proposals from outside vendors to operate weekday bus service if negotiations break down. The first day the LIRR unions can go on strike is July 19.

Thomas Prendergast, the MTA’s chairman and chief executive, said the agency needed to solicit proposals as a “a strike contingency plan” that could involve hundreds of buses. The agency held off doing so earlier as a way to “keep tempers down and keep negotiations continuing,” he said.

“But we are fast reaching the point, if we have not already crossed it, that the demand for buses during the summer will be such that we will not have any buses available if we don’t start these negotiations,” Mr. Prendergast said.

Mr. Paterson said such contingency planning creates the perception that railroad workers will indeed strike. “That is not a good way to conduct a negotiation and, if anything, antagonizes the process rather than trying to remedy it,” Mr. Paterson said.

The MTA has most recently offered 11% raises over the course of a deal covering six years, while the railroad’s unions are seeking 17%, according to a person familiar with the matter.

There are eight unions represent 5,300 LIRR employees. They have been operating without a contract since June 2010.

The MTA recently struck a deal with its largest union, the Transport Workers Union Local 100, which represents 34,000 employees who run New York City’s subway and bus system. That contract deal has yet to be ratified by the union membership or formally considered by the MTA’s board.